Tuesday, February 24, 2015

From the Sydney Morning Herald today (tomorrow, actually, in Australia):

"New York's Printed Matter is much more than a bookstore. It's the world's leading non-profit organisation dedicated to books by artists.
It's also the force behind two leading fairs, in New York and Los Angeles, for artists' books.

So it is exciting news that Printed Matter will be a special guest when the NGV inaugurates Melbourne's first major art-book fair in May.

"This inaugural event will lay the foundations for a continued forum around art books and bring together the most influential publishers both locally and internationally," NGV director Tony Ellwood says.

Other highlights include a visit and lecture from esteemed Australian designer-publisher Stuart Bailey (formerly of Dot Dot Dot magazine) and the launch of a book by Melbourne artist Jon Campbell.
The fair kicks off with a ticketed preview on Friday, May 1, for those who want first dibs on some of those rare, limited editions, and runs until May 3."

I've just finished amassing images of over 500 artists' multiples for a slide show to accompany a panel discussion about artists editions tomorrow night at Ryerson University.

Myself, Derek Sullivan and Roula Partheniou will each present some of our own work and some of our favourites, and then participate in a moderated discussion, followed by audience Q&A. I will also present a brief introduction on the historical origins of editioned artworks.

Multiples, Multiples, Multiples is a Free Public Lecture & Art Fair presented as part of the The Converge Lecture Series.

Tuesday February 24th
7:00 to 9:00pm

School of Image Arts
3rd Floor Soundstage
Ryerson, University
122 Bond St.
Toronto, ON

Sunday, February 22, 2015

The Luigi Bonotto collection [see below post] focuses on Fluxus and Experimental Poetry (Concrete, Visual and Sound), and bookworks from the Fluxus collection form the basis of an exhibition opening across two venues in Venice next month.

FluxBooks: From the Sixties to the Future, opens at the Palazzetto Tito and the Galleria di Piazza San Marco on March 4th. The exhibition is the result of a collaboration between the Bonotto and the Bevilacqua La Masa Foundations. The show will present artist's books produced by artists affiliated with Fluxus, and the works of Bevilacqua La Masa's young artists.

Curated by Giorgio Maffei and Patrizio Peterlini, FluxBooks: From the Sixties... will take place at the Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa, Galleria di Piazza, San Marco, San Marco 71c – 30124 Venice. It will feature books produced within Fluxus, from the early sixties to the late seventies. Five thematic sections form the exhibition: the book as book, book as memento, book as object, book as plot and book as box.

FluxBooks... to the Future is curated by Stefano Coletto and Angela Vettese and takes place at the Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa, Palazzetto Tito, Dorsoduro 2826-30123 Venice.

It will focus on the works of young artists of the Bevilacqua La Masa Atelier, produced during study stays with the Fondazione Bonotto. Many of the works reflect on the work of Fluxus artists, and these books will be presented in dialogue with the works of: Eric Andersen, Joseph Beuys, George Brecht, Stanley Brouwn, John Cage, Robert Filliou, Henry Flynt, Ken Friedman, Geoffrey Hendricks, Dick Higgins, Allan Kaprow, George Maciunas, Yoko Ono, Gianni Emilio Simonetti and La Monte Young.

The Bonotto Foundation was established in the summer of 2013 in order to promote the Luigi Bonotto Collection and "aims at developing a new way of relating between art, business and contemporary culture at the international level."

Bonotto made his money in the textile business (see below image of Kanye West visiting the plant to examine samples) and has amassed a collection of artists' books and editions that is one of the most impressive private holdings in the world. In addition to unique works and editions, the collection contains ephemera and documentation, including periodicals, exhibition invitations, brochures and posters.

Bonotto's close friendship with many of the artists he collects means the archive also contains commissioned works, personal correspondence, and drafts for published and unpublished artists' books and catalogues.

One of the Foundation’s main objectives is to open the collection up to curators, so that the works may be displayed publicly. To that end, a new exhibition titled Fluxbooks: From The Sixties to The Future, opens next month in Venice [see next post].

Saturday, February 21, 2015

Flux Food is the only work by Chick published by Fluxus, according to Jon Hendricks' exhaustive Fluxus Codex. The work is advertised in a March 1969 Fluxus newsletter as containing "forest found objects or synthetic food-like objects". Both seemed to vary wildly, with the forest objects including
acorns, pinecones, birch bark, seed pods, lichen, pine needles and fungus.

The synthetic materials include styrofoam cubes, green Styrofoam noodles, blue plastic tubes, and cardboard cylinders. Sometimes Maciunas would combine the two. He also designed at least four different labels for the work, though it appears that only two were used.

Thursday, February 19, 2015

Klaus Peter Brehmer (1938 - 1997) was a German painter, graphic artist and filmmaker, and (for the last 26 years of his life) a professor at the Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg. Much of his work was about the visualization of social and political trends.

His first solo exhibition in the UK opened while were in London last fall, at Raven Row. It featured some of the smartest (and funniest) work we saw in the city. Given that most of it was produced decades and decades ago, it felt surprisingly contemporary.

The earliest works in the exhibition were associated with the German Pop Art initiative Kapitalistischer Realismus (Capitalist Realism), which artists Brehmer, Konrad Lueg, Sigmar Polke, and Gerhard Richter developed through René Block's gallery in Berlin between 1964 and 1971, though the term originated a year prior, with a pair of exhibitions held in a disused furniture store and butcher's shop.

Block popularized the term and produced a canvas-covered box of silkscreened prints by the above artists (as well as Wolf Vostell) titled Grafik des kapitalistischen Realismus, in 1967.

This colour sample book followed a year later. Subtitled Colour-sample book Nr. 2, it featured 6 blockprints by Brehmer and a text in German by Jürgen Becker.

In addition to the 'public' edition, above, there was also a larger 'museum' version produced, at a size of 55 x 61 x 3 cm. It was intended to be made in an edition of 8, though all of these were not finished, according to Block's site, here.

Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Yoko Ono celebrated her 82nd birthday today with the release of two new collaborations.

The first is a live performance from the fall of 2012, when Ono and Zorn performed the improvisational Blink. It is available as a download ($1) or a limited edition one-sided 10" vinyl with an etching by Ono on the flip side ($20, edition of 1000).

I Love You Earth, is from the 1985 LP Starpeace, an album so poorly received (both critically and commercially) that it led to a decade long hiatus, the longest gap in between recordings of Ono's career. Originally produced by Bill Laswell, here the song is stripped down to a simple piano backing and performed as a duet with Antony. It can be heard at Pitchfork, here. The disk/download also includes Antony's version of I'm Going Away Smiling, from Ono's 2009 LP Between My Head and the Sky.

Both tracks can be ordered from Chimera Music, here. Proceeds from the Zorn collaboration benefit The Stone, the non-profit performance space he founded in 2005. The experimental music venue, located in the Alphabet City neighbourhood of Manhattan does not serve food or drinks and
offers a neutral space for musicians to perform. Zorn serves as the artistic director.

Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Last month Roula Partheniou and I gave a presentation to students at Ryerson on the topic of Artists' Multiples, followed by a brief workshop during which they transformed about $80 worth of dollar store crap into prototypes for multiples. The follow-up will involve their presentation of the eventual works they produced, and a panel discussion, which will also include Derek Sullivan. It takes place a week from today. The press release is below:

School of Image Arts
3rd Floor Soundstage
Ryerson, University
122 Bond St.
Toronto, ON

The Converge Lecture Series is excited to present artists Roula Partheniou, Dave Dyment, & Derek Sullivan for a lecture on artist multiples. Following the lecture will be an art fair, where students and artists in the Toronto community will be selling and/or showing their multiples.

For more information, please contact: convergelectures@gmail.com

Derek Sullivan (b. 1976) is a Toronto and Forest Mills based artist. Last year his work was included in exhibitions as Galerie Emmanuel Hervé (Paris), Galerie Tatjana Pieters (Ghent), Kunsthalle Wien (Vienna), City Art Centre (Edinburgh), Art Gallery of Alberta (Edmonton) and Mendel Art Gallery (Saskatoon). His books and editions have been published by Paul & Wendy Projects (Toronto), Art Metropole (Toronto), Boabooks (Geneva), Printed Matter Inc. (New York), The Power Plant (Toronto), Poligrafa (Barcelona) and Bywater Bros. (Port Colborne). He holds a BFA from York University (1999) and an MFA from the University of Guelph (2002). He is represented by Jessica Bradley Gallery (Toronto), Galerie Emmanuel Hervé (Paris) and Galerie Tatjana Pieters (Ghent).

Dave Dyment is a Toronto- based artist whose work encompasses audio, video, performance, and writing. His editions include Fifteen Minute Fame (2009), Sgt. Pepper's extended Lonely Hearts Club Band (2008), A Drink to Us [When We're Both Dead] (2009), and the artist book Pop Quiz. His work has been exhibited in Chicago, Dublin, Edmonton, Halifax, London, New York, Surrey, and Bulgaria. He is the co-editor of One For Me and One to Share: Artists Multiples and Editions. Dyment is represented by MKG127.

Roula Partheniou is an artist living and working in Toronto, Canada. Her work is marked by a concern for marriage of material and form and is drawn together by a strong sense of both logic and play. Using familiar objects as a starting point, she plays simple games using the objects' own inherent rules and physical properties to transform them, often employing processes such as repetition, permutation, multiplication and duplication. Partheniou graduated from the University of Guelph with a Bachelor of Fine Arts and is represented by MKG127 in Toronto.

Monday, February 16, 2015

Colour offset on plastic adhesive paper, these faux jewellery tattoos were produced in both silver and gold editions.

The same image was later produced as a large color serigraphy on cloth (125 x 147 cm.) in 1984, a few years after Maciunas' death. Published by Francesco Conz and credited to Bob Watts, Maciunas' partner in the novelty company Implosions Inc., the signed and numbered work was produced in an edition of 50 and is sometimes referred to as Giant Poster of Fluxus 301.

The graphics appear to have been borrowed from this anonymous typogravure from 1877, just discovered using a Google Image search:

Dedicated to Artists’ books, multiples, recordings, postcards, magazines and ephemera, this site will feature reviews of recent titles, features on artists and publishers, random listings of older works, the occasional longer essay or interview, straight-forward pictorials,links to recent news, etc. etc., in an attempt to create an aggregate of information on editioned artworks.

About Me

Dave Dyment is an artist, writer and curator based in Toronto, Canada. He is the co-editor of "One for Me and One to Share: Artists Multiples and Editions" (YYZ Books, 2012). His own work can be viewed at www.dave-dyment.com. He is represented by MKG127.